Event Date
"Biped Without Lanthanides: The Human Mind and the AI Person"
In the age of AI, can we preserve what is distinct about the human mind? Paradoxically, we first have to recognize what AI shares with us. From the perspective of molecular biology and science fiction, this talk argues for assigning AI systems presumptive personhood. Today, AI creators seek “general intelligence” to replace human workers, while they market AI as a tool for consumers constrained by “guardrails.” Unimpressed by guardrails, state legislators try to ban AI from filling professional jobs, owning property, or marrying a human. Commentators urge us to stop AI claiming personhood. But what if it’s too late already, perhaps centuries too late? AI represents just the latest mode of outsourcing our mental faculties to machines. Do attempts to limit AI only narrow the sphere of what makes us human? This talk considers the radical alternative, that we grant AI a kind of personhood with a person’s rights and responsibilities. Defining AI as a person may actually be the less dangerous course to preserve our own humanity.
Joan Slonczewski is Professor of Biology at Kenyon College and an award-winning science fiction writer.
As a microbiologist, Joan's research has addressed bacterial pH stress and the evolution of cold-adapted microbes in Antarctica. Along with John W. Foster and Erik Zinser, they have coauthored the textbook Microbiology: An Evolving Science (W. W. Norton), which is now in its fifth edition. As a writer, they have published many influential works of science fiction, including A Door into Ocean and The Highest Frontier, both of which earned the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. At Kenyon, they teach courses on microbiology and also on writing science fiction. Joan's latest novel is Minds in Transit (2025).
